Mathematical Functions

Introduction

These math functions will only handle values within the range of
the integer and float types on your computer
(this corresponds currently to the C types long resp. double).
If you need to handle bigger numbers, take a look at the arbitrary precision math functions.

Code Examples / Notes » ref.math

tmpa

while joogat's one line function is short, it is probably better to calculate factorial iteratively instead of recursively. keep in mind if you want large factorials, you'll need to use some sort of arbitrary precision integer or perhaps the BCMath functions. then again, unless you're trying to do large numbers (170! is the highest that you can do that does not return infinity) you probably won't notice any time difference.
<?php
function factorial($in) {
// 0! = 1! = 1
$out = 1;
// Only if $in is >= 2
for ($i = 2; $i <= $in; $i++) {
$out *= $i;
}
return $out;
}
?>

edward

well just a note.. maybe i'm a bit stupid.. but remember to use pow() rather than the "^" sign for exponents.. as it took me 5 minutes to figure out why it wasn't working.

nbraczek

Under some circumstances, it is appropriate to round floats to a given number of significant digits. This function will do it for you:
/**
* Round to significant digits
*
* @param float $f The number to be rounded
* @param integer $n Number of significant digits
*/
function round_significant($f, $n)
{
if ($f==0) return $f;
return round($f, $n-floor(log10(abs($f)))-1);
}

This might be useful in generating fractional numbers for construction, if only because most carpenters would rather put a nail in your foot than hear about any number that ends with .8125".
Since I couldn't figure out the fraction code above, this is my simple-minded take on the problem. Also, align by "char" doesn't seem to work yet in html, so it seems necessary to use tables (egad!) to make numbers align properly. The following code illustrates a way to make a dynamically sized table with aligned fractions from an array of random numbers. Since I don't care about fractions less than 1/16, this rounds them into oblivion. Also, it sorts the list from long to short and collates multiples in the array. One bit of cleverness here (gleaned from these pages) that might not be obvious: I'm using 1 *bitwise and* (1 &) to determine odd numbers.
If you copy and paste the following code, try refreshing the page a few times to see how the table adjusts itself.
<?php
// get some numbers to play with
$x = rand(0,130000)/10;
$y = rand(0,1200);
$z = rand(0,4)/64;
$array = array($x, $x, $x, $y, $y, $z, 324.19, 425/7, sqrt(2), pi(), pi());
// functions
function mult($n) { return intval (round ($n*16)); }
function frac($num) { $mod = fmod ($num,1)*16;
if (1 & $mod) { return " - ".$mod."/16"; }
else $mod = $mod/2;
if (1 & $mod) { return " - ".$mod."/8"; }
else $mod = $mod/2;
if (1 & $mod) { return " - ".$mod."/4"; }
else $mod = $mod/2;
if (1 & $mod) {return " - ".$mod."/2";}
}
// make a table
echo '<table>';
$array = array_map("mult", $array);
$array = (array_filter($array, strval)); //get rid of zeros
$array = (array_count_values ($array));
krsort ($array);
while (list ($key, $val) = each ($array)) {
$key = $key/16;
echo "<tr><td>$val</td><td>&nbsp; @ &nbsp;</td><td align=\"right\">".intval($key)." </td><td> ".frac($key)." </td></tr>";
}
echo '</table>';
?>

Theres another faster way of doing even/odd number checking by using bitwise operators. Don't ask me how it works, I just found this out by experimenting with it (could the editor possibly explain?)
if ((1&$num)) {
echo "$num is odd";
}
if (!(1&$num)) {
echo "$num is even";
}
How it works is (1&$num) returns a 1 for odd numbers and returns 0 when it's an even number.

The reason the bitwise AND ("&") operator works to determine whether a number is odd or even is because odd numbers expressed in binary always have the rightmost (2^0) bit = 1 and even numbers always have the 2^0 bit = 0.
So if you do a " 1 & $num", it will return zero if the number is even (since xxxxxxx0 [the even number in binary] and 00000001 [the 1]) don't share any bits, and will return 1 if the number is odd (xxxxxx1 and 000001).
a clever way of doing things, but $num % 2 would work as well i think :).

moc.erawtfostym@evad

The fastest O(1) factorial function has a lookup table of all the factorials that fit within the output range. With an array of the first 34 (float) or 170 (double) factorials, you get identical results in a fraction of the time.

Please note that shorter is not always better
(meaning that really short faculty implementation above).
In my opinion, a clearer way to code this is, including a check
for negative or non-integer values.
In order to calculate the faculty of a positive integer,
an iterative way (which might be harder to understand)
is usually a bit faster, but I am using it only for small
values so it is not really important to me:
<?php
// Calculate the Faculty of a positive int-value
function iFaculty($a_iFac)
{
if ($a_iFac > 0)
{
return $a_iFac * $this->iFaculty($a_iFac - 1);
}
elseif ($a_iFac == 0)
{
return 1;
}
else
{
return 0; // Wrong argument!
}
}
?>
I've also written another function to calculate the
binomial coefficient of 2 values, I didn't find it anywhere yet so I hope it might help someone (works fine with the above stated faculty-function and ready to be used inside of your own classes!)
<?php
// calculates the binomial coefficient "n over k" of 2 positive int values
// für n >= k
function iBinCoeff($a_iN, $a_iK)
{
// the binomial coefficient is defined as n! / [ (n-k)! * k! ]
return $this->iFaculty($a_iN) / ($this->iFaculty($a_iN - $a_iK) * $this->iFaculty($a_iK));
}
?>

help

Occasionally a user must enter a number in a form. This function converts fractions to decimals and leaves decimals untouched. Of course, you may wish to round the final output, but that is not included here.
<?php
/*Some example values of $q
$q = "2.5";
$q = "2 1/2";
$q = "5/2";
*/
function Deci_Con($q){
//check for a space, signifying a whole number with a fraction
if(strstr($q, ' ')){
$wa = strrev($q);
$wb = strrev(strstr($wa, ' '));
$whole = true;//this is a whole number
}
//now check the fraction part
if(strstr($q, '/')){
if($whole==true){//if whole number, then remove the whole number and space from the calculations
$q = strstr($q, ' ');
}
$b = str_replace("/","",strstr($q, '/'));//this is the divisor
//isolate the numerator
$c = strrev($q);
$d = strstr($c, '/');
$e = strrev($d);
$a = str_replace("/","",$e);//the pre-final numerator
if($whole==true){//add the whole number to the calculations
$a = $a+($wb*$b);//new numerator is whole number multiplied by denominator plus original numerator
}
$q = $a/$b;//this is now your decimal
return $q;
}else{
return $q;//not a fraction, just return the decimal
}
}?>

donnieb819

Method to convert an arbitrary decimal number to its most reduced fraction form (so a string is returned, this method would probably be used for output formatting purposes.) There were other methods similar to this one on the page, but none did quite what I wanted. It's maybe not the most elegant code, but it gets the job done. Hope this helps someone. An iterative form of Euclid's algorithm is used to find the GCD.
<?php
function dec2frac( $decimal )
{
$decimal = (string)$decimal;
$num = '';
$den = 1;
$dec = false;

In Evan's ordinal function, the line:
<?php
$tens = substr($cardinal, -2, 1);
?>
needs to be replaced by:
<?php
$tens = round($cardinal/10);
?>
or similar. At least on PHP 4.3.10, substr("1", -2, 1) returns '1' - so Evan's function gives "1th", as well as "11th". This is contrary to the documentation, but is noted in the comments on the substr manual page.

graywh

If you're really concerned about speed, you could compute the factorial of large numbers using the Gamma function of n-1.
Integral y^(t-1)*Exp(-y) for y from 0 to Infinity
For Fibonacci numbers, there's a better-than-recursive way.
((1+sqrt(5))/2)^(n/sqrt(5)) - ((1-sqrt(5))/2)^(n/sqrt(5))

daniel

If you´re an aviator and needs to calculate windcorrection angles and groundspeed (e.g. during flightplanning) this can be very useful.
$windcorrection = rad2deg(asin((($windspeed * (sin(deg2rad($tt - ($winddirection-180))))/$tas))));
$groundspeed = $tas*cos(deg2rad($windcorrection)) + $windspeed*cos(deg2rad($tt-($winddirection-180)));
You can probably write these lines more beautiful, but they work!

I was looking for a truncate function. Not finding one, I wrote my own. Since it deals with everything as a number, I imagine it's faster than the alternative of using string functions. HTH...
<?php
function truncate ($num, $digits = 0) {
//provide the real number, and the number of
//digits right of the decimal you want to keep.
$shift = pow(10, $digits);
return ((floor($num * $shift)) / $shift);
}
?>

I needed to approximate an integral because i was not able to calculate it, so i wrote this function. It approximates an integral with the composite Simpson's rule.
More information on Simpson's rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_rule
<?php
function simpsonf($x){
// returns f(x) for integral approximation with composite Simpson's rule
return(pow((1+pow($x, (-4))), 0.5));
}
function simpsonsrule($a, $b, $n){
// approximates integral_a_b f(x) dx with composite Simpson's rule with $n intervals
// $n has to be an even number
// f(x) is defined in "function simpsonf($x)"
if($n%2==0){
$h=($b-$a)/$n;
$S=simpsonf($a)+simpsonf($b);
$i=1;
while($i <= ($n-1)){
$xi=$a+$h*$i;
if($i%2==0){
$S=$S+2*simpsonf($xi);
}
else{
$S=$S+4*simpsonf($xi);
}
$i++;
}
return($h/3*$S);
}
else{
return('$n has to be an even number');
}
}
?>

jbeardsl

I needed a truncate function to operate on real numbers. I preferred not to use a string-manipulation method, so here's my solution. HTH...
function truncate ($num, $digits = 0) {
//provide the real number, and the number of
//digits right of the decimal you want to keep.
$shift = pow(10 , $digits);
return ((floor($num * $shift)) / $shift);
}

cornelius

I found that when dealing with tables, a 'least common multiple' function is sometimes useful for abusing tablespan and the likes.
So here goes (you may choose to remove the first part of the gcd function if the function call is well-behaved):
<?php
function gcd(n, m) //greatest common divisor
{
n=abs(n); m=abs(m);
if (n==0 and m==0)
return 1; //avoid infinite recursion
if (n==m and n>=1)
return n;
return m<n?gcd(n-m,n):gcd(n,m-n);
}
function lcm(n, m) //least common multiple
{
return m*(n/gcd(n,m));
}
?>
This may or may not be something to consider adding to the mathematical function library.

webkid%webkid.com

I found it kind of irritating that PHP had no native functionality for a calculating Factorials. Since I really didn't feel like loading the GMP library, I figured I'd write my own function.
function fact($s){$r=(int)$s; for ($i=$r;$i--;$i>1){$r=$r*$i;} return $r;}
I think that's right... I havn't tested it extensively but it should work.

Here's yet another greatest common denominator (gcd) function, a reeeeally small one.
function gcd($n,$m){
if(!$m)return$n;return gcd($m,$n%$m);
}
It works by recursion. Not really sure about it's speed, but it's really small! This won't work on floating point numbers accurately though. If you want a floating point one, you need to have at least PHP 4, and the code would be
function gcd($n,$m){
if(!$m)return$n;return gcd($m,fmod($n,$m));
}

Here is my factorial function which i think is very simple and without any confusion. email me comments if you like if i had something wrong.
<?php
function factorial($number)
{
$temp = 1;
while ($number > 1){
$temp *= $number--;
}
return $temp;
}
?>

Here is another way of calculating the nth term of the Fibonacci sequence, based on Binet's formula (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_series#Closed_form_expression for more information on this).
In this example, it would display the 17th term of the Fibonacci sequence.
<?php
$n = 17; // Sets a value for $n, the nth term
$phi = (1 + sqrt(5)) / 2; // Sets the value of phi for use in the formula
$u = (pow($phi, $n) - pow(1 - $phi, $n)) / sqrt(5);
echo "U<sub>$n</sub> = $u";
?>
Here is a script that lists the Fibonacci sequence from whatever two terms you specify, in this example from the 12th term to the 27th term (inclusive).
<?php
$f = 12; // Sets the 'f'th term, the term from which to start listing
$t = 27; //Sets the 't'th term, the term at which to stop listing
$phi = (1 + sqrt(5)) / 2; // Sets the value of phi for use in the formula
while($f <= $t) {
$u = (pow($phi, $f) - pow(1 - $phi, $f)) / sqrt(5);
echo "U<sub>$f</sub> = $u\n";
$f++;
}
?>

For people interest in Differential Equations, I've done a function that receive a string like: x^2+x^3 and put it in
2x+3x^2 witch is the differantial of the previous equation.
In the code there is one thing missing: the $string{$i} is often going outOfBound (Uninitialized string offset: 6 in...)
if your error setting is set a little too high... I just dont know how to fix this.
So there is the code for differential equation with (+ and -) only:
<?
function differentiel($equa)
{
$equa = strtolower($equa);
echo "Equation de depart: ".$equa."";
$final = "";

And the reason I needed a Factorial function is because I there were no nPr or nCr functions native to PHP, either.
function n_pick_r($n,$r){$n=(int)$n; $r=(int)$r;return (fact($n)/fact($n-$r));}
function n_choose_r($n,$r){$n=(int)$n; $r=(int)$r;return (n_pick_r($n,$r)/fact($r));}
Hope that helps someone!